A noted video game developer challenged his industry this week to stop being "lazy and boring" when creating characters that perpetuate racial and sexual stereotypes.

In a passionate speech at the Game Developers Conference, "Mass Effect" game designer Manveer Heir said the industry's future as a business and art form depends on his fellow designers moving beyond tired old stereotypes.

"I find it very cynical to think our audience is not smart enough to be able to accept and handle and embrace a gay protagonist, or more exclusive women protagonists that aren't glorified sex objects and actually have personalities beyond supporting the men in the game," Heir said.

Heir, whose hourlong talk brought a rousing standing ovation from the audience at Moscone Center, is a designer for game studio BioWare Montreal, a division of Electronic Arts. But privately, he has also championed the cause of social justice in video games, which he believes, like other mass media, reinforce stereotypes.

Heir noted studies that showed that games consistently portray white main characters as heroic, "fighting to save their often romanticized world, such as in 'Star Wars' or 'Final Fantasy 10,' or as realistic war heroes saving nothing less than Western civilization itself, such as 'D-Day' or 'Brothers in Arms.' "

However, black characters are portrayed "too often as the menace to society, with oversized weapons and gang posturing, as seen in 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' and '25 to Life,' " he said.

The successful "Grand Theft Auto" series is noted for lampooning society in general. But Heir said the latest installment, "Grand Theft Auto V," went too far by depicting transgender characters as prostitutes wearing "ridiculous clothing."

"Here is one of our most popular video games reinforcing these negative images," he said. "It enables the rest of us to more easily view trans-people as not people, but objects of ridicule, which makes it even easier to look the other way when they are victims of violence."

In fantasy games that use medieval Europe as a model, women are mostly portrayed as subservient to their men, which developers say is a reflection of the rampant misogyny and sexism of that time.

But Heir challenged that notion as "problematic," because it assumes the era had no strong females. Plus, he said, "it's fantasy. You can make the rules literally whatever you want. That's what the word fantasy means. There weren't dragons in medieval Europe."

And he said stereotypes are "contributing to the creative stagnation in our industry. But I also believe we need to reject stereotypes as a social responsibility to mankind. The way we portray characters matters to the world at large and it has (far) reaching effects beyond video games. It impacts how people treat each other in real life."

"Developers who do not adapt and understand this will be left behind," Heir said.